Free Control Point by Myke Cole Page A

admiring a caged tiger. You ooh and ah over a pretty thing that wants to kill you.
    —Major “Icebreaker” (call sign)
Supernatural Operations Corps Liaison Officer (LNO)
Bureau of Indian Affairs, Mescalero Reservation Task Force
    Britton could hear shearing metal as the uneven ground ripped off pieces of the undercarriage. The radio hissed static. The cruiser bumped to a halt.
    Dawn had come to the other side as well. The plain came alive beneath it, sawtooth grass flecked with tiny red and yellow flowers he had missed in the darkness. It rolled out for miles, ending at a line of rocky foothills. Currents of magical energy eddied all around him. He leaned out the cruiser’s broken window, looking behind him. The gate still shimmered. The cop stared through it, gaping.
    “You want magic?” Britton shouted at him. “Come and get it, you bastard!”
    If the cop heard, he gave no sign.
    “Baztaad …commageddit… ?” keened a voice.
    Three of the demon-horses sniffed toward the car. One poked at the passenger door with its single tooth, jumping back from the hard surface.
    Frustration boiled into anger. “Can I get a damned break?” Britton shouted.
    The magic tide swept about him, far more powerful on his side of the gate. Before he knew what had happened, he felt the current snake through the gate to wrap around the cop, hauling him through.
    The gate’s light washed over him as he came stumbling, eyes big as dinner plates. The pack streamed around the cruiser toward the easier target.
    “Oh, dear God. No,” Britton whispered.
    The cop screamed, hauling out his pistol and firing madly, in no danger of hitting anything.
    “Hang on!” Britton shouted. “I’m coming!”
    He slammed on the accelerator, pulling the steering wheel to run down one of the demon-horses. The thing turned, keening a rumbling imitation of the motor before the grill caught it, its ribs cracking as it slid up the hood to shatter the windshield. Its horselike head lolled toward him, eyeless, the spike tooth leaking blood. Britton punched it hard, jarring it enough to send it back over the hood. The car shuddered as the wheels crunched over it.
    The other two demon-horses leapt aside as he guided the cruiser toward the cop. He threw the driver’s-side door open. “Get in!”
    The cop backpedaled, his face a mask of terror. He changed magazines mechanically, then raised the pistol.
    Britton ducked as a bullet whined through the space where the windshield had been, thudding against the bulletproof divider behind him.
    “Damn it, you idiot! I’m trying to help you!”
    The cop answered him with another round, slamming into the engine block.
    The demon-horses flowed around the car toward the cop. Britton spun the steering wheel and drove away. Another bullet whined off the cruiser’s roof before the cop noticed the pack and turned the gun on them.
    Britton spun the wheel again, turning the car back, but another bullet hissed past as the policeman fired blindly at the monsters. Britton heard a coughing bark, the best impression of the gunshot that five more demon-horses, coming at a run, could muster.
    You’re no good to him with a bullet in your head,
Britton told himself.
Get out of here.
    He swore and floored the accelerator, bumping the car over the plain until the cop and the demon-horses vanished behind him. Assuming the cop had a seventeen-round magazine, he’d already expended at least ten of them. There was no way he could take out the whole pack, shooting like he was.
    He’s as dead as your father.
    Another gate opened. Through it, he could see deep forest alongside an overgrown trail.
    The devil you know is better than the one you don’t.
He drove through.
    The cruiser rumbled onto an old logging trail. The car bottomed out over roots and rocks, making it a few feet before the front tires blew out, sending his scraped nose into a half-deployed air bag. He sat with his head against it, numb and exhausted.
    He raised his head as